Large Format Digital Photography

maxotics wrote:

I envy you your year-round warmth in Arizona.

Yeah? Wait until August and let's see how you feel about our heat then ... lol.

Do you have comparisons of what you shot using your method and shooting natively through the A7R? Sounds interesting! I've thought about the same thing using pixel-shift on each frame (though I understand that's more of a trick to reduce bayer distortions).

Yes, pixel-shifting is something completely different.

Below are 100% excerpts taken from this photo, which involved a 30-second exposure at f8 and ISO 100:

Here's a single file, without median-blending:

And here's the same excerpt, except created using seven identical files blended together in CS6 using the median mode:

Note that the longer the exposure used, the greater the benefit from median-blending files; also, blending more files will reduce the noise even further, but I have found that seven files is a good compromise. If the scene is really dark, though, I will sometimes blend as many as 17 files (and I always use an odd number so the software doesn't have to average the values from two files to create a median value) but most of the time, I'm happy with the results from blending just seven files.

A good primer about this procedure can be read here. (Kasson used the mean mode, whereas I prefer the median mode because it eliminates most transient objects in the frame, including star trails, airplane and helicopter lights, etc. It also blurs any moving clouds, too!)

Oh and it also works for daylight photography, too. In fact, I'm presently working on a project that has me doing infrared photography and it's a huge help when it comes to reducing the noise inherent in those files!

Anyway, if all goes well, I might have a new back ready that would work on your camera if you're interested. I need other photographers to help me think through some issues. As you know, this is a complex process from start to finish, so the more one has experience in the overall issues the better chance of their success with my gadget.

I'm an inveterate tinkerer with all things electrical and mechanical, including cameras, so I'm happy to compare notes with you ... just drop me a PM and we can exchange contact info.

P.S.: In my experience, the A7R outperforms overall both the A7RII and A7RIII for this type of photography, as even with all the shortcomings of its files, it's possible for me to consistently recover more details in the shadow areas than I can using the 2nd and 3rd generation A7R camera bodies ... who knew?!